Idaho 10/26 & 10/27

I missed a couple of days and though I'd catch up on the old before starting on the new.

10/26

I figured since I was heading to Killarney Lake by myself, I'd build a boat blind until 11:00 the night before.  It was a solo day and I managed to get to the ramp with over an hour and a half till shooting time, perfect.  It was just a 15 minute boat ride and that would leave me with plenty of time to camo up my super sketchy burlap and wood stake boat blind before shooting.  How serious could a fog warning be?  The lake was pretty small and I've been out on it a few times.

After an hour of driving in circles with only ten feet of visibility I made the spot.  I won't go into it much but that was the single most disturbing experience I've had in a long time.  Fog warnings are serious business, even on small water.

I set up and brushed out the boat.  Everything had to be done from the boat, the water was deep and the mud was bottomless.  I put out about a third of the blocks and sat on the floor of the boat, ten minutes after shooting time.  I had a few teal come in and swims around the blocks, I figured they should hang out and provide some motion in the super still conditions.  Nothing was moving but fog.

I had a visit from the fish police in their sweet airboat, after a full inspection they decided to take off.  They proceeded to completely blast my boat with their fan from about 10 feet away, overturning some blocks and stripping the cover off the blind.   I couldn't wade into the deep muck so I had to tear down the blind to get to the blocks.  The guy had offered to push their boat back so it wouldn't blow me out, but the woman driving said that it wasn't necessary.  I thought she must have had another way that the guy didn't know about, she didn't.

The same woman stopped by our blind a week later in a truck, I asked if that had been her at Killarney and she said it was.  Turns out that the boat was a loaner from the biologists and that she had blown the motor the same day she blew me out.  She actually seemed to be pretty nice and in retrospect she must not have spent much time in that airboat as it was a loaner.

No shots were shotten but I got back alive.





10/27

Another solo day, I'd be hunting with Bob at "the other side" tomorrow.  I got out a little late with only moments to spare before shooting time.  I set out dozen mallards, six teal and a pair of goose decoys at Mud Swamp.  Birds were flying and mallards kept setting down but always out of range.  I decided to move decoys around and still they would land out of range.

I finally decided to move to another spot and leave Peat on the floating raft of cattails where he could be out of the muck.  As soon as I settled into the new spot, about 40 feet away, a big ol' greenie settled in across the hole from me.  He splashed down and let out a content call, I waited for him to come closer, but I didn't want to lose this chance.

I pulled my gun up and he took off to the right, the first shot let loose some feathers, lots of feathers.  I hesitated before firing again, this is an easy place to lose birds.  I decided that he might not live with the amount of damage I had done and decided to shoot again. In the moment of thought he had continued moving toward the treeline and was now further than anything I had shot at before.  I put a huge lead on him and pulled the trigger, he dropped.  I'm not sure I would try that one again.

I called Peat over and we settled into another stand of cattails closer to where the birds had been working.   Another flight came by and I let off a pretty loud call as they moved into the distance.  On the third note a very surprised greenie came into view only about 10 feet out and maybe six feet up, locked and feet out. I think he might have been more surprised than me as I blasted that call in his face, he flared and before I could pick up my gun he was gone.

Another teal  landed right outside my original hide and he swam in and out of range for awhile.  I packed up everything except two hens and was getting ready to pull those when a group of hens circled and committed.  After missing three times I grabbed the last of my blocks and headed back to the car.  Mud hole is a hard place to leave, birds fly by every few minutes but they'll only come down at certain times it seems.  It had been a busy weekend but I still had Monday with Bob to look forward to.